Gabriel's mood swings
by TrickyTrixx
Summary: Not having listened to his Kwami at the beginning, Gabriel Agreste put into motion a series of events. Ones he certainly never imagined. Is there a consequence for making the good do evil? Apparently so. And it's a doozy.


**A/N: I always wondered if there were downsides to using a Miraculous selfishly. Like, could Gabriel experience some awful side-effects from his abuse of Nooroo's powers... So I made one!**

* * *

It started small. Not enough to be noticeable if one wasn't focusing on it too closely. Even then it would barely register as anything more than fleeting thoughts or emotions everyone dealt with. Gradually though it began to grow and become more than a passing feeling.

Gabriel Agreste was a man who had spent years hiding his emotions behind an unbreakable wall. The few emotions he did let free were negative ones that served to help his cause in finding and taking the ladybug and black cat miraculous. It was therefore concerning to him when, out of what seemed like nowhere, he suddenly felt giddy and let out a bark of laughter.

It was for only a moment but it unnerved the super-villain greatly. He knew it was not his own emotion. The surge was the same type he normally got from negative emotions throughout Paris.

"Nooroo."

The sprite hiding inside his jacket flitted out in front of the man. "Yes, Master?"

"Why did I just feel happy?"

Nooroo's eyes glanced to the side for a moment before flitting back to the silver-haired designer. "Normally people feel happy when-"

"Do not test me, Nooroo!" The loud thump from his fist hitting the desk caused the tiny sprite to flinch and barely hide a whimper. "You know _exactly_ what I mean. I changed the miraculous to suit my needs and only to feel negative emotions to send out my Akumas. Why did I just feel a positive one?"

"I tried to warn you, Master when you first started, but you transformed before I could inform you and you refuse to listen to me whenever I try to caution you." Gathering what little courage still remained in his small body, Nooroo floated up until he was at eye-level. "The miraculous are to be used to help the world, not to terrorize it. By forcing it, and me, to be used for evil, you created a block of sorts. All of the positive emotions you would normally feel are bottled up. And now they are too strong to be held back."

"What do you mean a block? Bottled up?! How many different emotions am I going to experience?!" His anger at the sudden knowledge quickly turned to trepidation when he saw, for the first time ever, Nooroo smile in satisfaction.

"All of them."

* * *

For the first time since he had begun his mission, Gabriel Agreste wished he had never found the Butterfly Miraculous. When his Kwami had told him that he would begin feeling more emotions than the normal heightened negative ones, he had thought the small creature was merely being overly dramatic.

That thought had lasted two days. Still, he was a stubborn man who had known adversity and built his company empire through that same stubbornness. He would not be brought down and see his mission derailed by a few extra pesky emotions.

That resolve lasted nearly a week. At that point Gabriel started to feel he was losing his mind. Sleep was fleeting as the emotions permeated into his very dreams. He locked himself away in his office to keep his son and any member of his staff in the mansion from seeing his emotional breakdowns. Gabriel feared that should anyone other than Nathalie see him in that condition, they would have him committed.

Nooroo meanwhile was of a split-opinion on the situation. While not a vengeful kwami, he certainly did enjoy seeing his tormentor get a small penance for his actions, however he would relieve the burden of the man if he was able.

For Nooroo could not help him. Nooroo, while he was a being of unfathomable power and age, still was bound to the Miraculous which had a mind of its own. It too was enjoying the consequences Mr. Agreste was now paying for, unlike Nooroo however, it had no delusions of wishing it to stop.

Even renouncing the kwami and the Miraculous had no effect. In fact, without the ability to channel the emotions through a conduit, Gabriel was nearly consumed by the massive flood of emotions that surged through him all at once.

"I can't take it anymore!" He wanted to grab something to throw across the room, to vent his frustrations by breaking something. Unfortunately his office was all but bare by this point as everything had already been destroyed and cleaned up, once again by his devoted assistant. "Just…just five minutes of silence. Please." He sunk to his knees only to begin giggling madly by the newest rush of emotions reaching out to him.

* * *

It wasn't too much later that he began to adapt to the problem. Emotional upheaval was still a constant occurrence, however he had been able to learn how to focus them, reaching out to one emotional strand at a time. It was still powerful and could potentially overwhelm him at any point, but it was no longer something that he needed to fear being committed. A lot of his employees mainly saw their boss 'lightening up' after being there for so many years.

There were a few unfortunate but also uncontrollable times where Gabriel could not put up any sort of mental block. Usually these were due to a particularly strong emotion or when he was in close proximity to someone. Because of those occurrences, the man spent nearly all of his time at home, preferring to conduct meetings over tablet instead of being there personally.

It had one benefit which came as a surprise but a pleasant one thankfully. Being home more often allowed him to spend a few meals with his son, Adrien. The openness of his new emotional senses picked up the gratefulness of his son at each meal. It was one of the few experiences with the new emotions that he actually cherished.

One night though Adrien had been late coming to dinner. Gabriel wasn't overly concerned. Having been touched by more positive emotions, even against his will, had made him a more accepting parent, prone to giving his son a little more freedom. It was only a few minutes that he had been waiting before the squeak of a sneaker sole caught his attention at the top of the stairs. He turned to greet his son with a smile that quickly faltered.

Adrien looked as if he had just ran from his shower, his hair messy and slightly wet. A reddish tinge to his cheeks as if he had been out of breath or had just finished running or exercising. The feelings of embarrassment stemming from his son rolled over Gabriel like a wave, but he also felt a mix of excitement and satisfaction. Not used to experiencing such a thing, Gabriel was temporarily stymied until Adrien turned his head just enough to reveal a light bruising along his neck and a small smear of lipstick on his shirt collar. Realizing the implications of what those feelings actually meant, the aging father choked on his glass of wine.

_'Oh god, why? Nooroo, I will never forgive you for this.'_

* * *

_One month later and a lot of lost sleep…and also sanity…_

It wasn't often that Natalie would be found in the kitchen at such an early hour of the morning. The rare occasions being the unpleasant 'eat or die' situations she found herself in after working through the day without time for a meal. Normally Gabriel was better about letting such things occur to his most loyal employee, but lapses in attention to the time did sometimes happen. This morning however it was not the craving of food that had Natalie slowly entering the kitchen, but the noise.

Stainless steel countertops and carefully arranged silver bowls caught the pale light coming from the large fridge nearby. The door was open and facing away from the woman who cautiously entered the room. The staff was gone for the evening, Adrien was asleep in his bed, and there should be no one even awake at this time of night. Who would be lurking in the darkened room lit only by a single small bulb…

It wasn't until she caught the sight of a few stray hairs of platinum gray sticking straight up did she voice the question. "Gabriel?!"

At her words, a man quickly jerked upwards showing wide-open eyes and a disheveled head of of hair. A large smear of unidentifiable food or foods was swept across his lips and cheek. "Natalie! Oh thank god. Help me, please."

Sighing heavily, Natalie strode forward and gave the aging designer a firm tug away from the fridge before snapping it shut and inputting in a code on a keypad on the door, something she had needed installed for just this reason.

"Let me guess…Mr. Howard?"

"The man is a menace!" Gabriel forced his eyes away from the now locked fridge and moved towards the nearest sink in order to clean his face. An untied robe fluttered with his paces showing a humorous pair of fuzzy slippers that Natalie did not recall the man even owning.

"He fell off the wagon, I presume?"

"Yes!" Gabriel finished wiping off his face before plopping his head into his hands. "I was finally getting to sleep after that toddler's temper-tantrum over in the nineteenth and suddenly I find myself in agony over food! A horrible depressive wave of feeling unsatisfied in my belly and before I knew it, I am elbow deep in the fridge at two in the morning!"

"Sir, it's now three am."

"An hour?!" Gabriel's eyes practically bulged in horror. "Do you have any idea how many calories I will have to burn off before my new suit gets fitted for the Fall showing?!"

* * *

"Hawkmoth has certainly been off his game lately, M'Lady." The superhero duo were currently sitting upon their favorite perch, high up on the Eiffel Tower where the only ones who could reach it were themselves and the birds. The sunset was slowly starting to fade away letting the stars begin to shine down from the sky above.

"The last couple of months certainly have been odd." Ladybug stretched out along her parter's lap while reaching up to scratch behind his ear, eliciting a contented purr from the feline. They made sure to keep their relationship while suited up as far away from the cameras as possible, knowing their foe could potentially try and use it against them so secret excursions such as that one allowed them for more time together when they could not always slip away as their civilian selves. The Dupain-Chengs had been a bit stern on how often Adrien was over at their house already. "Tikki thinks it may have something to do with Nooroo and the Butterfly Miraculous. Something about 'unforeseen consequences.'"

"Ohhh! I get it. That's why we keep getting these really lackluster and honestly pretty pathetic akuma attempts? Plagg didn't tell me squat. 'Nooroo probably got fed up. Now where's my cheese?'" The way Adrien bobbed his head back and forth and raised his voice a bit higher had Marinette giggling.

Chat had begun to lay down next to his girlfriend, intent on snuggling together before they finished their nightly patrol, however a scream rising out across the square had him groaning and rolling to his feet instead, Ladybug following quickly.

With spinning yo-yo and an extended staff, the two got ready to leap into action only to pause, bewildered with what they were seeing.

Instead of the normal form of most akumas, those set on battling the heroes to defeat them, this appeared to be a mailman, simply grown until he was nearly the height of a nearby apartment complex. The large sack over his shoulder was obviously the akumatized object with it's purple-blackish hue, however the villain seemed to be frozen.

Exchanging glances, the duo decided that they should take advantage of the akuma's inability to move, but before they could, the sack opened and hundreds of butterflies flew into the air. The group moved through the air gracefully before coalescing into a face well-known to the city by then.

Hawkmoth's image couldn't show many details, but the heroes did note a seemingly droopy expression with the villain's eyes and face.

"CITIZENS OF PARIS. I AM HAWKMOTH." Curious at seeing this new development, many Parisians, rather than flee from the akuma, chose to come closer to get a first hand look at the floating head of their fearful tormentor. A news crew had pulled up and surprisingly the super-villain seemed to focus on them more than others. "I PRESENT TO YOU A TEMPORARY CEASE-FIRE."

Murmuring broke out amongst the gathered crowd and Ladybug and Chat Noir had a feeling the same would be echoed across the city from people sitting in front of their televisions. The superheroes meanwhile raised a brow towards each other.

"ALL OF YOU WITH YOUR PESKY EMOTIONS HAVE PUSHED ME TOO FAR. THE POSITIVITY AND NEGATIVITY, HATE AND LOVE, RAGE AND SADNESS ARE DRIVING ME MAD." His image seemed to grab its own head and squeeze, looking like a man with a headache gone berserk. "I SWEAR TO YOU ALL THAT I WILL NOT MAKE ANOTHER AKUMA FOR A GUARANTEED TWO MONTHS IF YOU CAN PLEASE, _PLEASE_, NOT HAVE ANY STRONG EMOTIONS FOR THE NEXT FORTY-EIGHT HOURS. I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE. I NEED SLEEP AND YOU ARE WAKING ME UP TWENTY TIMES A DAY WITH ALL OF YOUR INCESSANT NEEDS. SO TO SUM UP: NO EMOTIONS. FORTY-EIGHT HOURS. TWO MONTHS NO AKUMAS. NEED. SLEEP. NOOOOOOWWWWWW…."

Ladybug and Chat Noir exchanged glances. "I think we can let him do this, but just this one time."

"I can understand it I guess. Heaven knows how many times we fell asleep in class."

"Ain't that the truth."


End file.
